Saturday, June 30, 2012

Cat puke on flip flop.
Message of disgust? Or just
A passing hair ball?

BTW, I was noticing, in the newspaper? Male runway models, showing summer clothes? Those dudes seem to shave every damn thing but their faces...chests! legs! hairless and shiny as a little baby (who knows what ELSE they are shaving?)
So, pardon my legs here, I come from...gasp....a different generation, one that finds shaving boring, dull, and confined to the face when I have to....

Friday, June 29, 2012

(mugs by Gary Rith) This is my sort of punk doggy, not my usual beagle. I was making one for a teapot and decided to add these to the baby blue mugs...mmm...yummy, eh?)

With the gluten free guests this weekend, with my own (although I am vegetarian no dairy) high cholesterol (inherited, its in my genes) and low iron levels, plus, of course, the usual interest in varied protein sources, I wanted a NEW oat flour muffin recipe!*** I love this recipe that I found, love love love! So easy, so tasty! Apparently, due to wheat shortages in WW One, somebody developed an oat flour muffin.
You say "who cares, what is Gary's point?". Well, as you know, some people are better off without wheat. Some are gluten intolerant. As a vegetarian with low iron, high cholesterol and needing protein, oat flour has: cholesterol fighting properties, iron and protein and fiber, HA!

Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Add milk-I used soy milk, the egg, molasses and shortening-I used oil. Bake in greaseded [muffin] pans twenty-five minutes at 350. This may be baked in a bread pan and sliced when cold.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

(covered zebra dish by Gary Rith)
Nifty zebra pot, hmm? You will notice that I brushed some blue in a zebra pattern on there...so its looks ZEBRA-ish :)
OK, next week? It suddenly occurs to me FIRST fair of the year for me is next week. I don't do too many, but this is a big one, 3 days! In Binghamton, an hour's drive. I always have a lot of fun and they treat us VERY well down there.
Anyhow, it means counting on your fingers, making many items, drying them in the sun, getting them ready to fire....and finally, I am nearly finished painting my display from lat year's accidental SHOCKING yellow color to this year's buttery yellow....

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Kind of a double good comment, hmm? Because those pots I made below, if not dropped, will outlive me too.
Let me explain: Mary here, has the magic fingers. Ever had the dentist or hygienist from HELL? I have. The hacking, the chopping, the BLOOD AND GUTS! In your mouth. Mary = SUPER GENTLE.
To explain further, I had the same dentist from about age 15, when the dentist was fresh out of dental school and we were about his first patients at his first job, with admittedly some breaks for living in Chicago and New Hampshire and then back here, but lets just understand: I sorta had the same dentist about 30 years. He is bald now. For some reason, he decided to buy another dentist's practice across town, who was retiring. Breaking up the partnership he had here with Dr. K___. He was taking on those patients and bringing along his own...so, you know, an amicable divorce of dentists, right? He just wanted to help those other patients and fly solo or something. ANYWAY, despite 30 years of seeing him, when we heard he was moving cross town the question was "but where will MARY BE?". Mary stayed with Dr. K_____....and we shrugged off my history with the dentist, without a backward glance (as wonderful as he has always been) to stay with Mary. (side note...I was at a concert 2 months ago and...who was playing guitar? Dr. K___...wow! Talk about magic fingers!)

OK, so Mary tells me yesterday "these teeth will outlive you!" which is a massive compliment. She says it is refreshing to see somebody so healthy who tries to take care of their teeth. I tell her "I floss! I brush all the time! Plus, my dad had gnarly teeth which my sister inherited and her daughter inherited, but I inherited my MOM's perfect teeth". Which is how life is sometimes....I also did not inherit my father's bald dome....

OK, sure, the little baby visitor to our backyard is utterly adorable (how can people shoot these things and eat them????? don't answer that you carnivorous cavemen and women)

BUT you know what is really adorable??? Not my cat and dog, although they are quite adorable, but this teapot just outta the kiln Saturday, yeOW! I have a lot of my favorite postcards printed (see below, with red teapot) and I was like "this is my best work, why don't I make more of this sh!t???" so I did this guy...and natch, I am making another today.......

Sunday, June 24, 2012

AFTER buying junk on the road, more on that in a sec, we had lunch with Tom at Agava. We bump into Tom last week at a party...the wife was in the same freshman dorm in Chicago . First time seeing each other in !!!! years, and he teaches here...small world, eh?
Ithaca? Agava kicks a$$. GO THERE and have brunchlunchordinner, yum!
ANYWAY....just before that we were biking all over east hill....and shopping at all the yard sales....the wife got a hat box for her stetson!!!! Worth a buck she tells me....but...I got a junky little ceramic beagle ....WHY? You ask...good question...I make beagles everyday! This thing has a certain and INSPIRING charm...and was worth the pocket change it cost me....

Saturday, June 23, 2012

(Godzilla dish by Gary Rith)
YOU KNOW I think the birds on it in the post below are cute and I will make more, but in the end, I am really more of a PUT A GODZILLA MONSTER on it, you know? is it because I AM A BOY? It occurs to me that putting Godzilla on everything is a very boyish thing to do...

They always surprise you, don't they? Spike has been napping on my flip flops all week......??????????

Friday, June 22, 2012

You will recall last week I joked about the whole "put a bird on it" phenomenon....and then I made pieces with birds on them. Turtles! here they are now, fired....I REALLY like the look of periwinkle blue together with spring green REALLY REALLY really like it...as in, this looks good here, and we plan to paint our purple house those colors instead....like, this summer....
(new pots by Gary Rith)

Thursday, June 21, 2012

I had an entirely stunning glaze firing Tuesday, unloaded early Weds. Non-potters may not realize how tricky firing is. Usually my firings are good, once in a blue moon there is a problem, sometimes stunning. (if you are a full-time professional, you need most of them to be stunning, or nearly :) Its like baking!
Anyway, one thing going on in there was this drawing I did of my beagle Penny and my cat Spike on items.....PUT A CAT ON IT! (Friday = put a bird on it! You will see)

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Well, maybe June 1 is my FAVorite, with the 3 great months ahead, but June 20, the longest day of the year is AWESOME. 96 degrees or something like that here today...and HUMID! Felt pretty good, though, living here, as we do, on a riverbank, breezy and at least 15 degrees cooler. Visitors will notice we have no air conditioning....never have....usually it is so cooooooold.

Anyway, love it all. I got these pots made today, super excited about them, and got them out into the sun to dry with the laundry....and finally finished a couple parts of my new FAIR display...left is wine crates now hinged on a yellow board. It folds flat in the car, opens up to be shelves bolted to my table, clever, eh? on the right another yellow board, but with hooks, to hold wall pieces then also bolted to my table....have an awesome evening!

You were probably wondering what to feed your vegan friends who are gluten intolerant? As in, no wheat, no dairy, no eggs? The wife goes to a solstice party this evening with the dish to pass. LUCKY FOR HER I made her these cookies *** Ithaca, of course, is full of vegans, and a lot of people avoid wheat these days, but why should all these awesome people suffer through life desert-free and grim and miserable?

***Gary Rith's awesome and amazing gluten-free vegan chocolate cookies
makes 16 large or 24 small
(As long as you can buy chocolate chips and cocoa powder which are non-dairy--easy to do in Ithaca)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Or, "the return of the a$$less chaps!"
I will admit, this is the closest I have ever come to a$$less chaps...many of you will recall, this was a recurring joke a year or 2 ago, thanks to Goofy Kim...the wife and I were shopping Saturday in Syracuse and I had a close encounter with these things....luckily they were LARGE so I was not tempted to bring them home ;), plus, you know, maybe they were GERMY.....

The wife and I had brunch at Alto Cinco in Syracuse.....holy cats we love that little place...this is all veg of course, and lookit the wife, in the cowboy hat!

We picked up clay from Andrew and his family, who own my supplier Clayscapes in Syracuse...if you are guessing we use Clayscapes as an excuse to shop at our favorite stores and eat at our favorite places, you would be correct....

The wife will complain "you put all these pictures up, of the same thing!" Well, in the case below, I deleted MANY...and in one I have the tarts on a plate! These are gluten free, dairy free (the way I used soy milk and cheese) little mushroom tarts...fantastic, and easier than you think, basically a wee little QUICHE!